Library & Literary Miscellany

The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander (2004)

“My name is Mikhail Semyonov. I live in Lake Forest village, Illinois state, the United States of America. I am ninety-four years old. I was born in Russia before the revolution. I was born in Tula province and my name then was not Mikhail or even Misha, as I am known here in America. No, my real name–the one given to me at birth–was Leonid Sednyov, and I was known as Leonka. Please forgive my years of lies, but now I tell you the truth.”

So begins Misha’s recounting of the real story of his emigration from Russia to the United States. Robert Alexander’s The Kitchen Boy unfolds Misha’s story by degrees–at times moving painstakingly slowly and at times rushing towards its inevitable, tragic conclusion of the assassination of the Romanov royals by the Bolsheviks.

After decades of silence, Misha tape records his story of the events surrounding the Romanov’s execution for his granddaughter to listen to upon his death; in his recording, he continues to weave together lies and truth. The guilt he feels over surviving that night when his beloved Romanovs met their deaths is palpable and becomes increasingly understandable as his narration unfolds.

Misha declares himself to have been the kitchen boy for the Romanov family for their last years through their final days in the House of Special Purpose in Yekaterinburg. In this role, he was charged with the task of carrying smuggling notes between the Romanovs and their purported rescuers. Their subsequent deaths mark his failure in this charge.

The recording reveals that for the remainder of his life he lives in the shadow of their deaths, repeatedly replaying the events of that night and questioning his actions prior to that night trying to deduce how he could have acted differently to save them. He says, “I am the last living witness and I alone know what really happened that awful night…just as I alone know where the bodies of the two missing children are…”

Misha’s story–The Kitchen Boy–is a story full of history, tragedy, guilt, love, and forgiveness. I would particularly recommend it for those interested in learning more about Russian history in general and the Russian Revolution of 1917 in particular or for those who enjoy stories full of mystery and conspiracy. Plus, Alexander throws in a twist at the end regarding the fate of the missing Romanovs. Robert Alexander is also the author of Rasputin’s Daughter and The Romanov Bride.

To find other books that center around theorizing and/or extrapolating on the Romanov’s execution and the missing children, try selecting one of the works from the annotated list of books over at Royalty.nu.

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Since today is Wednesday…

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (2007)

“Toads, beetles, bats.”

Let me tell you, The Wednesday Wars Schmidt depicts the life of a Shakespeare-reading, cross-country running seventh grade boy in the Vietnam Era about as well as it’s possible to depict any historical situation through fiction. Schmidt masterfully mixes Holling Hoodhood’s personal trials and rites of passage through seventh grade with the nation and the world’s trials. Holling’s life is full of tensions of all kinds–familial, school, cultural, and religious. It is due to Holling’s religious orientation–as a Presbyterian among a class of Catholic and Jewish students–that he finds himself alone in Mrs. Baker’s classroom every Wednesday afternoon when the other kids head off to attend to their religious studies.

Wednesdays with Mrs. Baker at first seem like cruel and unusual punishment. She sets him to tasks such as reading Shakespeare, carrying cream puffs, pounding dust out of chalky erasers, and cleaning the pet rats’ cages (the rats being named Sycorax and Caliban). Yet, while Holling does suggest more than once that Mrs. Baker most definitely hates his guts, he comes to realize that there’s more to her than her teacher exterior suggests. Mrs. Baker ends up teaching him not only about Shakespeare, diagramming sentences, and proper running form but also about cultural understanding and appreciation and about caring for others outside one’s own family.

Holling’s own family come across as rather cold and distant. His father cares mainly for his architectural contracts and his status as Chamber of Commerce Businessman of 1967. His mother does a lot of cooking lima beans and submitting to his father’s mandates. His sister spends her time listening to the Beatle’s, joining campaigns, rebelling against her father’s expectations, and finding herself.

Holling’s friends, on the other hand, make sacrifices for him more than once and come through for him when he’s feeling down and out. Holling Hoodhood has an authentic seventh-grade narrative voice. At times, he appears extremely ignorant and at other times he seems wise beyond his years. The Wednesday Wars stands as a strong story about friendship, baseball, wartime, cultural differences, and the impact that caring teachers can have on the next generation. It’s a well-written book that many kids will enjoy reading…really.

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Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park (2008)

“She could never be a Yankees fan. Or a Giants fan, either, except for cheering for Willie Mays. It was impossible–like saying she should be a dog instead of a girl.”

Maggie loves nothing more than hanging out at the firehouse and listening to Dodgers games on the radio. Maggie’s love of baseball runs in the family–her mother and brother are Dodgers fans, her father is a Yankees man (his fandom going so far as to name both his children (Maggie-o and her brother Joey-Mick) after his favorite player, Joe Dimaggio).

Maggie enjoys listening to the games at the firehouse so much because all of the firehouse employees are Dodgers fans too. That’s why she’s somewhat taken aback when the new fireman Jim turns out to be a Giants fan. Nevertheless, Jim and Maggie become fast friends, a friendship galvanized by Jim’s agreement to teach Maggie the ins and outs of keeping score. Maggie even becomes a somewhat clandestine fan of Willie Mays, although she remains true to her team as she tracks play-by-play their progress and regress each game for the duration of each season.

Maggie feels that her efforts factor in to the Dodger’s success, and she tries everything to help her World Series Championship-challenged Dodgers to win the championship. She dutifully listens to their games on the radio, scores the games, reads the newspapers articles about the games, clips said newspaper articles, and adds the Dodgers as a whole to her prayer list.

Her new nightly prayer becomes, “Please God bless Mom and Dad and Joey-Mick and me and all our friends and relations and the most abandoned souls in Purgatory and–and the Dodgers. Amen.” Talk about a prayer that covers a lot of bases (pun somewhat intended).

Maggie’s baseball-centric view of the world begins to expand when Jim is drafted. He leaves to serve as an ambulance driver in the Korean War (or Conflict as it was then labeled). Maggie writes to him and he writes back, for a time. Then Jim’s letters stop coming.

As Maggie struggles to understand Jim’s silence, she becomes increasingly interested in understanding the war. She goes with her mom to do some research at the library, and her mom tells her, “War is about land, territory. One side trying to control more than the other.”

The story continues with Maggie throwing all of her efforts into following the war and following baseball in hopes that the former will help Jim return safely and that the latter will help the Dodgers win the championship. When she discovers that both of her efforts seem to be to no avail, she’s forced to re-evaluate her role–what she can do and what’s beyond her control.

She also comes to a new understanding of the importance of hope–for herself, for Jim, for the Dodgers, and for all of their futures. She thinks, “But hope is what gets everything started. When you make plans, it’s because you hope something good is going to happen. Hope always comes first.”

Keeping Score follows Maggie’s life in New York in the early 1950s, from age nine to thirteen. Maggie’s coming of age encompasses so much–baseball history and lore, the Korean War, loyalty, grief, friendship, and hope–that inadvertent learning is likely to take place (for instance, I know that I learned quite a bit about baseball history, and who knew the scoring could be made so complex?). The story flows smoothly and the historical detail flows around it in a way that Parks has accomplished before (remember A Single Shard?) and we can only hope will accomplish again.

At the end of Keeping Score, Park’s author notes and list of websites for nascent scorekeepers add to an already worthy piece of historical fiction for young readers. For those looking for additional baseball-related literature, the following are links to a few lists of baseball literature that have been put together.

• Cincinnati Library: Baseball–America’s Love Affair (more for adults, but it does have some ideas for interesting nonfiction and biographical books)
• Harris County Public Library: Baseball (a mixture of picture books, easy readers, fiction, and non-fiction)
• Logan Library: Picture Books About Baseball
• UIUC Education & Social Science Library Blog post: Baseball Anyone?
• University of Wisconsin CCBC: 40 Books about Sports ( a mixture of sports )
• Waterford Public Library: Baseball Books (A mixture of picture books, easy readers, chapter books, nonfiction)

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any thoughts on Keeping Score or on other favorite baseball literature, (recently updated) baseball booklists, or moments in baseball history.

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Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (2007)

“I will be honest with you. I have no wisdom, none at all. The truest thing I can tell you is that whatever we have between us is all we’ve got. Oh, and of course Mr. Dickens.”

So begins Mr. Watts (Pop Eye) in his not-so confidence-instilling speech to the children at the inception of his informal, short-lived teaching career. Showing he does actually possess wisdom to some degree, Mr. Watts also tells the children “I want this to be a place of light…No matter what happens.” Mr. Watts is the sole remaining white man on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea throughout the dark times of the 1990s civil war.

In Mister Pip, Matilda narrates her story of going to school and learning about life and literature even as death and violence circles her village. As Matilda notes, school with Mr. Watts is different. “This was school, but not how I remembered it. Perhaps that’s why everything felt strange, as if we were trying to squeeze into an old life that didn’t exist anymore, at least not in the way we remembered.” Through Mr. Watts’ teaching methods, the children learn to navigate the new circumstances of their lives. A large piece of Mr. Watts teaching centers around helping the children discover new and personal connections with Mr. Dickens’ Great Expectations from which Mr. Watts reads one chapter every day.

To supplement Great Expectations and the other gaps in Mr. Watt’s knowledge (what is chemistry the study of again?), he invites the children’s parents into the classroom so that they can share their own particular knowledge. Out of these occasions the children come away with new insight into topics such as the color blue, faith, the devil, octopus slaughtering and turtle cooking techniques, sex, and weather forecasting (”Trust crabs above all others”). But it is the reading of Great Expectations that provides the classroom anchor and the daily haven even as the village is surrounded by both government and rebel troops.

As Pip and his story become more important and intertwined with the children’s stories, the parents become increasingly uneasy. Matilda’s mother, Dolores, in particular, feels that Great Expectations has no relevance to the children’s lives. For Dolores, her Bible is the only worthy book: “Faith is like oxygen. It keeps you afloat at all times,” and she worries that her daughter’s interest in Pip may lead her to disregard her ancestry and the teachings of the Good Book. Dolores begins to see Mr. Watts as her enemy and rival.

All of this unrest over Great Expectations leads to the only copy of the book disappearing, but by that time, the children know the story so well that they re-create Pip’s story from their memories and their imaginations. Mr. Watts teaches the children that they each have a unique voice and he encourages them to use it, “Your special gift that no one can ever take from you.”

Dolores’ insecurities about the book and about Matilda’s connections to it lead her to tell Matilda to record her ancestors’ names on the beach. Dolores hopes that this action will force Matilda to remember and revere her ancestors like she remembers the book. But Matilda feels more connected to Pip, and she ends up with “Pip” inscribed into the sand on the beach. When the redskins (government soldiers) see “Pip” written in the sand and when they keep hearing his name, they decide that Pip must be a rebel spy. They demand that he turn himself in.

The redskins issue ultimatums to the villagers that they procure Pip or else. Without the book and without a Pip to bring forth, Mr. Watts declares himself to be Pip, and he begins a multi-evening storytelling event in which the tale he tells is partly Pip’s, partly the islanders’, and partly his own as soldiers and villagers alike listen on. All do not live happily ever after, however, as this is war and the redskins and the rebels trust no one and treat others’ with wartime brutality.

Mister Pip stands as a profound post-colonial work commenting on story construction and the power of story, the atrocities of war, and the vicissitudes of human morality. Mister Pip has been recognized as such, making the short list for the Man Booker Prize and winning the Commonwealth Prize and the Alex Award (click here for more Alex Award Winners: adult books with special appeal for young adults).

Takeaway Quotes:

“A gentleman is a man who never forgets his manners, no matter the situation. No matter how awful, or how difficult the situation…A gentleman will always do the right thing.”

“…to be human is to be moral, and you cannot have a day off when it suits”

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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007)

*some spoilers follow

Nana said, “Learn this and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”

In his first novel following the success of the The Kite Runner, Hosseini once again brings readers into Afghanistan. Whereas The Kite Runner focuses on telling the story of boys and men, A Thousand Splendid Suns portrays the lives of two Afghan women. Hosseini relates Miriam and Lila’s stories as women in Afghanistan during a time when their country devalued and disrespected women’s rights and provided them with restricted power of choice in the events of their own lives.

“Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami…Mariam did surmise, by the way Nana said the word, that it was an ugly, loathsome thing to be a harami, like an insect, like the scurrying cockroaches Nana was always cursing and sweeping out of the kolba.” Mariam’s classification as a harami positions her to be rejected by respectable members of Afghan society. Accordingly, following Nana’s death, Miriam has little choice but to accept the marriage proposal of Rasheed, a man who turns out to value his wives only for what they can give him–progeny. When it turns out that Miriam cannot, in fact, give him this desire, he turns the full force of his cruelty and abuse upon her.

The parallel story is that of Laila whose circumstances also conspire to force her into marriage with Rasheed–Laila’s parents have been killed, and she is pregnant by a man whom she loves but believes to be dead. Laila marries Rasheed, and, for a time, Laila and Mariam are the bitterest of enemies until they become the best of friends.

The story shifts back and forth between the perspectives of these two women as together they endure in their country perpetual war under different rulers with different level of tolerance of women–Soviets, the mujahideen, the Taliban. Together they endure in their home life perpetual fear, powerlessness, and abuse. Because they are together, they also help each other to hope for a better future for Laila’s children. When Taliq (Laila’s childhood love) returns, the far-off promise of hope draws near to reality.

A Thousand Splendid Suns reveals the lives of two women whose courage, resilience, and love keeps them going and makes them memorable characters; it also shows the interconnections between sacrifice and redemption, situation and choice, and power and powerlessness. For other books that are set in and around Afghanistan try:

Non-fiction:

• Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez
• The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
• The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan by Christina Lamb
• Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan by Ann Jones
• Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom by Sulima and Hala and Batya Swift Yasgur

Fiction:

• Measuring Time by Helon Habila
• The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
• The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
• The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra
• Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples (young adult)

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The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis (2007)

“He didn’t question what he was being told…This was the time of brainwashing”

There may have been a time when Peter Sis did not question what he was being told, but The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain stands as a testament to the fact that today Peter Sis is an independent thinker (as well as a talented artist). By sharing his story, Sis gives us a textual and pictorial front seat view into communism in Czechoslovakia from the beginning of the Cold War to its end.

Throughout The Wall, Sis is shown trying to make sense out of the life and the culture that lies before him. He knows he wants to be an artist, but self-expression and personal identity are frowned upon in favor of complete conformity and communal identity. He struggles with what he is being taught versus what he feels in his heart, “He stopped drawing and was left with only his dreams. But he had to draw. Sharing the dreams gave him hope.”

Sis makes the atmosphere of fear, suspicion, and lies relevant to children by telling about the Czech government’s policy that encouraged young children to inform on family and friends. Limited freedoms and limited choice is reflected in Sis’ stark text and illustrations. His black and white pen and ink illustrations fill most each page; when color is used, it is largely communist red. With 56 pages (more than the traditional 32 pages found in most picture books) and cartoon like panels, The Wall amalgamates the best of the picture book and graphic novel formats.

While it contains only a mere five paragraphs, Sis’ introduction provides a lucid synopses of the Cold war and sets the stage for his memoir. He writes, “The Soviet Union and the Western nations managed their territories in different ways. The Western Bloc countries were all independent democracies, while the Eastern Bloc was tightly controlled by the Soviet Union.” He notes that Europe was divided “symbolically, ideologically, and physically…I was born at the beginning of it all, on the Red side–the Communist side–of the Iron Curtain.” The story then opens with the Soviet’s closing of the Czech borders in 1948; it ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and Sis’ explanation of how difficult it is to put into words the Cold War. Sis has overcome this difficulty by putting his story and the story of these years in world history it into words and pictures while also incorporating other elements such as a historical timeline and excerpts from his journals.

Sis’ book deals with a complex and politically-charged time in world history. On the one hand, adults may need to help younger readers navigate the timeline and make it relevant to life today; on the other hand, the complexity encourages discourse and questioning of different value systems and ways of being. The Wall takes readers outside personal circumstances into recognition that other individuals and people’s of the world have hopes, dreams, and realities as real as their own. The Wall also enhances appreciation of freedom–freedom to draw, freedom to be, freedom to choose.

Sis has won awards for other works (e.g., Starry Messenger as winner of the 1997 Caldecott Honor). The Wall has earned him a couple of additional distinctions, recently winning the Robert F. Sibert Medal and a Caldecott Honor. So my final take on The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain:

Reading this book
COMPULSORY
Failing to read this book
PROHIBITED

(Not that I’m advocating conformity or coercion…but, I’m SUGGESTING this will be popular among students of history and with those who enjoy non-traditional book formats.  It will also come in handy for teachers and students facing Cold War era curricula.)

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Before I begin this review, my congratulations go out to all of the authors of the ALA Award and Honor books for this year. Since Elijah of Buxton won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical fiction, the Coretta Scott King author award, and a Newbery Honor I thought it an apt title to review for the day. So here goes…

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (2007)

Elijah of Buxton is a fortunate child–fortunate to have been the first child born into the town of Buxton, Canada, a community of free blacks and escaped slaves founded by Presbyterian minister Reverend William King. He’s fortunate, but he’s also fragile and prone to gullibility and mischief. Elijah of Buxton relates Elijah life as he catches fish, throws rocks, plays tricks, learns a trade, and makes mistakes and rectifies them as best he can.

Along with these episodic adventures, Curtis includes a culminating adventure in which an unethical “Preacher” steals money from Mr. Leroy, a man whom Elijah works for and respects. Mr. Leroy has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the South, and the Preacher’s theft drives him to desperate measures–measures which entail taking Elijah to America to catch the Preacher and to recapture the money. It is this final adventure that makes slavery real for Elijah such that he recognizes its horrors and comes to truly appreciate his freedom. “Fragile” Elijah grows up–recognizing that he can be sensitive and empathetic while also remaining courageous, steadfast, and true.

In Elijah of Buxton, Christopher Paul Curtis has once again brought history to life by creating a winning protagonist and a compelling story (see The Watsons Go to Birmingham or Bud, not Buddy for more of his historical fiction). He portrays the injustices and cruelties of the period in sensitive and age-appropriate ways. For example, he uses Elijah’s narration to show such scenarios as how escaped slaves who are used to fleeing and hiding must be cautiously approached and how one escaped slave was caught and tortured to death in his attempt to join his family in Buxton. Curtis also realistically portrays the grief experienced by the family and community upon hearing the news of the death.

At the same time, Curtis highlights the strength of spirit of both the enslaved and the free and escaped slaves. Elijah of Buxton does include a significant portion of dialect which might cause struggling readers to stumble over some of the content, but overall, Elijah’s story is an important story and an award-worthy addition to historical fiction.

Takeaway quote (and sampling of the dialect):

Mr. Leroy tells Elijah, “Fish eating’s like anything else in life, Elijah. If you go at it ’specting something bad to happen, all you gunn do is draw that bad thing to you. You caint be timid ’bout nothing you do, you got to go at it like you ’specting good things to come out of it. If I’s to worry ’bout bones choking me, it’d happen every time I et fish. Ain’t nothing further from my mind.”

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Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (hardcover 2006, softcover 2007)

Suite Francaise requires slow and careful reading in order to appreciate its scope, its historical significance, and its range of human characters and emotions. Suite Française—comprising the first two parts of a planned five-part novel—succeeds as a piece of literature that probes the heights and depths of human nature.

Suite Francaise’s first part, ‘Storm in June,’ details the characters’ hasty departure from Paris in the summer of 1940. The second part, ‘Dolce,’ details life in a German occupied French village. In each of these parts, Nemirovsky weaves together multiple stories seamlessly so that readers recognize that while the experience of war does look different depending on one’s angle–whether it be victor or vanquished–war has long-lasting, deleterious effects on all who come within its inexorable reach.

Characters from Part 1 (such as the family Pericands, writer Gabriel Corte, gas-thief Charles Langelet, the bank employee Michauds) and from Part 2 (such as Lucile Angellier and her mother-in-law, their live-in German commander Bruno von Falk, and Benoît and Madeleine Sabarie) each have his or her moral fiber tested to the breaking point (and, in many cases, broken) by the war.

In both parts, Nemirovsky juxtaposes extraordinary scenic beauty and human cruelty. She shows the raw and ranging emotion experienced by all individuals touched by the war–fear and resignation, contempt and compassion, narcissism and selflessness, revenge and forgiveness, hate and love. Suite Francaise’s poignancy and tragedy is augmented by its author’s fate; in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz. Irene Nemirovsky died a month later at the age of thirty-nine leaving the world with only story fragments and plot outlines of the remaining three pieces of her masterpiece.

For more works by Nemirovsky, 2007 saw the publishing of Fire in the Blood a posthumously published work that also speaks to village life in France (albeit pre-war this time) as well as to the human condition.

As a side note, IMDB lists Suite Francaise as possibly being a future 2009 movie. There’s really no information available at the link, but I thought I’d point it out as something to be watching for anyway.

As a second side note, I am a big fan of Metacritic as a source of media reviews (and as a source for my own what do I read, view, listen to next). You will find that Suite Francaise tops the list of all-time highest book reviews scores with 95 out of 100. An incredible score for an incredible, significant work.

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A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: a Melodrama by Laura Amy Schlitz

In general, it’s a part of being human to go to great lengths to be loved and accepted. How far would you go? For Maud Flynn, the question of how much to compromise herself in order to be loved becomes extremely pertinent after she is adopted by the Hawthorne sisters.
It’s 1909, and high-spirited Maud has lived at the overcrowded, prison-like Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans for many years. It’s little wonder that she jumps at the opportunity to be adopted. She is sure her adoption will mean freedom from the persecution and isolation imposed on her by the superintendent of the Barbary Asylum. Unexpectedly, Maud enters a new and different sort of prison–a sort of spiritual and mental entrapment–from which she will have to use all of her character and willpower to escape without forgetting who she is.

Even as Maud trades in her daily gruel for toast and bacon, her grubby asylum uniform for multiple beautiful dresses, and the smelly outhouse for the wonders of indoor plumbing, she begins to suspect that there is more to her new life than its surface perfection. After all, it is a bit suspicious that her new caretakers don’t want anyone to know of her existence and, thus, make her remain upstairs for many hours each day (on the positive side, she does get a large portion of reading done, including reading Little Lord Fauntleroy multiple times).

Maud’s caretakers, the three Hawthorne sisters (aka spinsters), have chosen a somewhat unconventional (and somewhat unethical and illegal) means of sustaining themselves in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed. They are false spiritualists who hold séances to trick the relatives of the dead out of money. Maud is faced with the realization that they did not adopt her out of the goodness of their hearts; instead, they adopted her because they needed her to take part in the séances.

Out of Hyacinth, Victoria, and Judith Hawthorne, Maud particularly longs for the love of Hyacinth. Hyacinth, capable only of self-love, uses Maud’s hunger for love and drags Maud further into the treachery and trickery of the seances.

To enter into Schlitz’s tale is to enter into a story of secrets and séances, of humans passed on and humans left behind, of self-love and selfless love. Multiple séances are held throughout the story, a necessity given the plot, but worth mentioning as a source of potential objection to the tale. Really, though, the paranormal elements provide the foundation for the novel’s probing questions that each of us must come to terms with–life, death, life after death, life after loss.

Given Hyacinth’s hold over Maud, it seems impossible that a happy ending will prevail for anyone in this Gothic paranormal tale. Yet, even as Maud begins to play out her role in the séances, she becomes increasingly unsettled about the repercussions of her actions on others, particularly as she begins developing relationships outside the Hawthorne sisters. In particular, Maud’s relationship with the deaf servant Muffet is poignant and plausibe. Maud desperately needs Muffet’s steadfast love–a love without performance conditions–in order to break free of Hyacinth’s conditional love. Hyacinth tries to convince Maud that they are doing relatives a service through their false spiritualism and seances, but Maud comes to see the false hopes that it sets up for the living relatives and the devastating effects the trickery has on those relatives.

Hyacinth soon learns that she picked the wrong orphan to pick on. Maud’s fighting spirit is present from the beginning (as the novel opens, Maud has been incarcerated in the outhouse (again), and she is singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic). Despite Maud’s being cowed into submission for a time by the fear of Hyacinth’s withdrawal of approval, her resilient spirit and sense of right and wrong come to the fore in the novel’s climax.

Schlitz’ fast-paced novel has depth, raising questions without providing answers about personal responsibility, morality, and eternity. A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama, Schlitz’ first novel, won the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction in 2006.

Read alike: How it Happened on Peach Hill by Marthe Jocelyn

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Water for Elephants begins with a quote from Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss: “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant…An elephant’s faithful—one hundred percent!”

Sarah Gruen’s novel covers much more than elephants drinking water; she throws in a full-fledged circus, the Great Depression, and a poignant love story along the way. Jacob Jankowski narrates the tale providing readers with accounts of his life–alternating between detailing his current existence in the nursing home and flashbacks to his time in the circus. Including the older Jacob’s voice enriches the story about the younger Jacob’s adventures with the circus by adding the voice of experience and reflection to the occurrences.

As Jacob nears graduation from veterinary school, he experiences tragedy for the first time when his parents are suddenly killed in an accident. Tragedy doggedly pursues Jacob as he foregos completing veterinarian school and jumps on a train–only to wind up as the caretaker for a traveling circus menagerie. The bright spots in his life are Marlena and Rosie–the beautiful young star of the equestrian act and the elephant, respectively. August, the controlling, mentally unstable animal trainer has both of Jacob’s loves under his cruel control. August is married to Marlena and he is Rosie’s trainer. Jacob must find a way to save both his loves. Water for Elephants tells a tale of faithfulness, loyalty, and love overcoming all odds in a time of American history when the odds were weighted against poor itinerants attaining happiness and leading rich, full lives.

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